The present disclosure, for example, relates to security and/or automation systems, and more particularly to controlling a control panel remotely, such as from a central station of a security and/or automation system, particularly while conducting a two-way call over a common data channel.
Security and automation systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication and functional features such as monitoring, communication, notification, and/or others. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with a user through a communication connection or a system management action.
Traditionally, communications between a controller (e.g., control panel) of the security and/or automation systems and a central station are conducted over a two-way voice call (e.g., land line or cellular call). This restricts the control panel to only communicating on a voice call during the two-way session. The voice call is limited in quality to the audio properties in the equipment used by the control panel, the phone company, and the central station. The controls are limited to just telephone keypad touchtones (dual-tone multi-frequency—DTMF) such as hitting 1 to talk and 3 to listen. When a poor connection exists, the touchtones are not audibly “heard” by the panel and make it difficult for the operator to control the call. Additionally caller ID (CID) signals are held by the panel until after the two-way call is terminated causing questions by operators who have to make assumptions about how to handle those signals when they come in. Additionally, cellular air time is possibly more costly than the cell data exchanged for a call of the same length when using DTMF calls over a cellular network.